


Under no moon

by Alephion



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Grouchy old Luke Skywalker is the brightest thing this fic has going for it, No redemption for Kylo, One-sided Kylo Ren/Rey, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:10:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13199586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alephion/pseuds/Alephion
Summary: A different take on Rey finding out about the Force Bond and what happens afterwards. Dark Reylo.





	Under no moon

" _Rey_."

The voice came to her as she was tucking into her cot on the Millenium Falcon at the end of her first day on the island, having spent the afternoon and evening chasing Luke Skywalker over hill and valley, stone and sea. It reached her a whisper on the wind, so faint that at first she thought she might have imagined it, or mistaken one of the temple Caretaker's distant garbling for her name.

But no. A while later, there it was again: _Rey. Rey. Rey._

"Chewie?" she called aloud, before remembering that the Wookie had set off earlier in the direction of Master Skywalker's home to ask for something to help settle his stomach. An entourage of balls of fluff had stalked after him, puffing themselves up and screaming bloody murder. Rey hadn't asked. The secret to becoming Chewbacca's friend for life, she'd found out, was to know which questions needed to be asked and which were better left alone.

She expected him to linger at Master Skywalker's for a while. The Jedi and the Wookie shared that ever so precious thing that Rey shared with no one: a common history built on love. She could picture the two of them sitting cross legged around the fiery heart, sending back and forth the bottle of Corellian Red she'd noticed to have disappeared from Han's not-so-secret stash, trading stories and memories. Grieving, in a way she could barely begin to comprehend.

Rey didn't think of walking up and joining them, although she mourned Han Solo with unexpected fierceness. She'd feel like an intruder. They'd known Han for most of their lives. She might have lost a man who'd marked her, who'd briefly become someone for her to rely on and look up to, but they'd lost a brother. There was no way to compare her pain to theirs. Best that they all out themselves privately and apart.

" _Rey._ "

Rey sighed, rolled off her cot and slipped her boots back on. Whoever was calling was definitely calling for her and being awfully insistent about it. Since Chewie wasn't around, she supposed she would have to pop outside and check who was there herself.

A chilly breeze and a moonless, starless sky greeted her as she stepped off the bridge. She saw no one standing on the landing and when she squinted at the shadows beyond, the only life forms visible were the fluff balls Chewbacca had started a feud with. The sound had been so soft and garbled that it was hard to discern with certainty what species had produced it, but she somehow doubted that it'd come from them.

Strange. Or maybe the speaker had gotten fed up with waiting for her to come out and wandered off.

" _REY_!"

She spun around wildly, knocked her hip against the side of the bridge, lost her balance, stumbled, regained it, finished her turn, eyes boring wildly into the darkness.

 _That voice_. She'd thought, before, that it sounded like it might be a human's, though there weren't supposed to be any on the island other than her and Master Skywalker. Now that the words came to her shouted, the disturbance that had thinned them and stripped them of their familiar harmonics gone, she knew she'd been wrong. Not a human's. It belonged to a monster.

" _Rey._ " Now it was a sigh. Weary, yet relieved. " _You can hear me, then. Good."_

"Where are you?" But she knew the answer already, because before the words left her lips her eyes had already stopped scanning her surroundings for signs of a black cloak swishing or a red lightsaber igniting.

He wasn't anywhere. He was _everywhere_. He was inside her head.

The word _how_ formed in her mind. He answered before it reached her mouth.

" _There are many, many aspects of the Force you don't yet know about. As I've already told you."_

"I know that!" she snapped, startling a huddle of fluffy creatures with her vehemence. Of course she knew that. It was half the reason why she was there in the first place. So that she might stop needing to give him the right whenever the matter of her knowing nothing whatsoever about the power that had laid dormant within her her whole life got brought up. "It won't stay that way for much longer."

" _You would improve at a much faster rate if you'd accepted the offer I made at Starkiller Base_." His voice was doing an odd thing now, where it faded in and out as if he were moving closer and away in quick succession. _"I'll restate it: join me, Rey. Allow me to teach you. Allow me to help you fulfil your potential_."

" _I already have a teacher_ ," she thought back. The swings in volume level inside her skull were leaving her so nauseous that she was afraid she'd hurl if she opened her mouth to reply aloud. _"A better teacher_."

Untrue, strictly speaking, but his response would tell her to what extent he was partial to her thoughts. It would only remain a lie for a little while, too. Master Skywalker had so far been less than forthcoming about imparting Jedi wisdom than she'd hoped for, but she was confident that she'd wear him down eventually. She was nothing if not determined.

Furthermore, having no one to teach her was still infinitely preferable than being taught by Kylo Ren. What could she possibly learn from him? How to spit in the face of the world and murder your own flesh and blood?

" _Luke Skywalker? He can't possibly understand you enough to provide what you need."_ He spoke his uncle's name with dripping venom, his hatred coming through the connection trumming across space to bind them and leaving a taste of ash on her tongue.

She felt glad he'd said it in exactly that way. In trying to argue in his favor, he shone a light on why he'd never be acceptable to her.

Kylo Ren was incapable of understanding her, because Kylo Ren had once been a boy named Ben Solo. A boy who had been loved, born to royalty and heroes but above all, parents who cherished him and cared for him to such an extent that they'd wanted to save him from the bottomless sinkhole he'd let his soul turn into. A boy who'd been handed on a silver plate everything an orphan scavenger struggling to survive in the Jakku desert might wish and dream of, only to turn up his nose and reject it, _kill it_ as if it were worthless.

Nothing about Kylo Ren made Rey as angry as the unapologetic waste of the man he might have been, the man Han had believed, had fallen to his death believing, he might still become.

"He'll have to be enough," she whispered, hoping. Master Skywalker, grouchy old man that he might have become, had once been young and not so unlike her. An orphan, albeit not an unloved one, stuck in nowhereland waiting for destiny to lift him to greater heights.

If she could show him that they weren't so different at heart, perhaps he'd help her understand what her destiny was supposed to be. She still felt frighteningly unclear on that point, though she at least knew who to not press for advice in that regard.

" _He won't be."_ Suddenly, a face. His face. Body, encircled by a frame of nothingness. Rey's gaze danced between one and the other for a couple of seconds, since she wanted to look at neither, before reluctantly letting it rest on him, as it gave her a headache to let it linger on that perplexing shroud of un-dark, un-light. " _Deep down, you know it to be true. You hear the Dark Side cry out and you want to answer, but can't. Everything in here holds you back_."

Here he lifted a hand encased in dark leather and brought it across the divide keeping them apart. Rey stared at his index finger in something akin to an hypnotic trance, wondering, as it raised to meet the center of her forehead, if it would go right through like a ghost and whether she would feel anything if that were the case.

She felt leather. Neither noticeably hot nor cold. Definitely solid.

She would have bolted if she didn't remind herself, before her feet chanced to take off, that she'd only be running from herself. That Kylo Ren would follow her wherever she went, acting insufferable about the fact that she'd been foolish enough to flee him in the first place.

Rey took a deep breath and stepped away from him, turning her back resolutely.

She didn't run. She set her jaw, squared her shoulders and walked, at a sedate pace, up the path leading to the round houses uphill to knock on Master Skywalker's door.

If ' _Your nephew discovered a way inside my head and I need to learn to lock him out before my inability to protect myself leads him to this place'_ didn't push him towards providing the mentorship she needed, nothing would.

 


End file.
